Living Souls. 321 



dust being animalized, and then organized, was next set in 

 motion by the inrush of the air through his nostrils into his 

 lungs according to natural laws. This phenomenon was the 

 neshemet el, or " breath of God," breathing into him ; and as 

 it was the pabulum of life to all creatures constituted of dust, 

 it was very expressively styled the "breath Q{ lives" and not 

 the " breath of life" God breathes into every man at his birth 

 the breath of lives to this day, and there can be no reason, 

 Scriptural or otherwise, why we should deny that He 

 breathed it into Adam as He hath done into the nostrils of 

 his posterity by the operation of natural laws. Man, as soon 

 as he began to respire, like the embryo passing from foetal 

 to infant life, " became a living soul" that is, nephesh chayiah, 

 a living, breathing frame, or body of life. All kinds of flesh, 

 whether of man, beast, fowl and creeping thing, are made 

 alive by the same breath and spirit. They all become, in 

 consequence, living souls, so that, having a oneness of spirit, 

 a man hath no superiority over a beast. 



Having now proved, as we think, beyond the possibility 

 of a doubt, that men and beasts " have all one ruach, or 

 spirit," and hence are all living souls, we now approach a 

 form of life, termed vegetable life, about which the Script- 

 ures have little to say. Neshemet el, or atmospheric air, is 

 just as essential to plants as to animals. Deprived of it they 

 wither and die. No less necessary is the all-pervading mack, 

 or spirit. It is in the air, though not of the air. Plants, 

 equally with animals, breathe it, but it is not their breath. 

 Without it, even though filled with air, they would perish. 

 Perhaps it is the base of each of the elementary constituents 

 of the air. Uncombined, may it not be that wonderful fluid 

 whose explosions are heard in the thunder, whose fiery bolts 

 overthrow the loftiest towers and rive the sturdy monarchs 

 of the woods, and whose influence, though in less intensity, 

 gives polarity to light, the needle, and the brain ? 



Living plants are a part and parcel of the life of our 

 globe. They preceded in the grand scheme of creation 



